[gdenby]

When I worked at the art museum, the wood shop did not initially have either a dust collection system, or proper ventilation. For awhile my make-do solution was to build bins under the saws, drills, etc. I cut a slot in 1 workbench, and placed a box under that. At intervals, I would just run a bench brush across the surface, and drop most of the dust thru the slot. That at least limited a large portion of the heavier dust. We also had a shop vacs. Some were not too effective. We eventually got one that worked pretty well. (It was mostly blue and white, so we named it R2D2.)

Eventually, A very large dust collector was placed in the shop, and every machine and tool station had a vacuum vent attached. There was also a exhaust system, but because of the odd layout of the building, it was not very effective.

The art department wood shop had several large exhaust fans built into the windows. A carpenter friend of mine also has an exhaust fan in his saw and sanding room.

When working in the museum galleries, any tool that could be connected to the vacuum was.

I see that there are small fan boxes built to gather rotary tool dust. I know that a simple enclosure can help a lot. For several particularly messy projects, I taped together cardboard enclosures to limit the dust spread.

Even w. the exhaust system, we usually wore simple face masks. What our employer was more concerned w. was sound. The sound level from the power tools and exhaust system was sufficiently loud that we were required to wear hearing protection if we were working on something for more than 10 - 15 minutes.

 

[gdenby]

Gdenby: a dust collection system would be ideal, but not always practable or affordable -- but I'd love to have a set-up like your describing!

The shop could have been greatly improved by much smaller collectors connected to the tools that produced the most dust and chips. But what happened was this: We had been building many temporary wall sections, display cases, shipping crates, etc. I was too young (err, read stupid) to know that working continually in a cloud of dust was a bad thing. One day, I went into the shop, and saw a fire marshall and a fellow in white shirt and tie standing there. I felt happy that I had just collected all the sawdust, etc, into several 35 gal. plastic bags. The white shirt guy asked about the bags, and how often I was filling that much. As it happened, the correct answer was "about every 3 days."

As I later learned, the shirt and tie fellow was an OSHA inspector. The management way of saying "Our bad, please don't cite us" was to show up and ask what my dream dust collection system would be. To my surprise, I got it. Way bigger than needed.

If I was doing anything at a commercial level, I think a small shop could probably be kept clean for under $200, including some hoses.

 

[gdenby]

My lungs are OK. I spent a few months back then coughing up brown gunk, but I had already stopped smoking. That was back when 65% of American adults smoked. Staff meetings were held in a fog bank of smoke.

As I mentioned, the institution became far more concerned w. hearing problems. I have some hearing loss, but not too bad for my age. The problem the safety instructors were concerned w. was the broad use of "ear buds" for music, etc. The prediction is that the 20 somethings of today will have the hearing of 60 somethings by the time they are 40.

For now, I'm quite happy to not be using power tools.